Review of True North

The debate remains open. Theme: it still makes sense to listen to a disc of Bad Religion in 2013? It is worth a review? But you do not have anything better to do? All good questions, very precise and detailed, which can be answered, however, only in a vague and subjective. What I try to do this review (which is already, implicitly, a half-second answer). It is true that the group drop-punk by definition now looks like an 'institution dedicated to preserve and hand down to posterity the best heritage of a musical genre that is likely to be distorted and misrepresented by the racket forever youthful mtviana-of-emo-oxygenated last fifteen to twenty years, more than an art project which is being renewed fits and feeds of his time. As it is true, a corollary of the first truth, which would be quite out of place to expect something new and surprising from a band in almost 35 years has changed very little, faithful orthodoxy of aggressive and melodic sound - almost an old recipe from survival guide hardcore - that detached and controtempi basic and lightning, guitars that jump to the white with a ferocity with agra and cheerful, that stings in spartan but insightful changes in choral melodies usually broken down into no more than three colors .

Apparently, then, would seem to be no reason of interest and perhaps even curiosity about a hypothetical new album of Californian band, the sixteenth of their career, tentatively titled "True North". Someone could very well go on to say that not listening to Bad Religion at fourteen means you have no heart, listen to thirty played back means you have no head. That there may also be, but it would be ungenerous and ungrateful especially for them. Gratitude - this might be a good answer to the first question - gratitude and nostalgia. Very vague and subjective, as a response, but this risk were already been told in advance. Yes, because Bad Religion, and more than other groups as long gone by the wayside of the lowest uncomfortable and drawers of memory, remind me of my early teens, my fourteen or fifteen, my naive but genuine enthusiasm, my tragicomic acts of rebellion, the parties, the first social centers, occupations, do "saw" at school under the guise of some pretended demonstration of solidarity to the comrades in Chiapas or this or that and end up at someone's house to listen to music and to much more "instructive" that you never learned in school.


On a conceptual level does not stand as an argument, I know, but since sometimes the feelings (and emotions) are more of the facts, I thought that this experience could be an existential ground common to many readers and music lovers like me , have experienced Bad Religion in the mid 90's when touched perhaps the pinnacle of their success, despite being "old men" who had already split and reformed a couple of times, thanks to the tax resogli by a generation of discussion and questionable "heroes" neo-punk like Green Day, Offspring, Rancid and the like. Then you discovered that going forward instead of Bad Religion were formed in the early eighties and who were part of the second wave of historic hardcore bands with fellow travelers illustrious and sometimes magnificent as Misfits, Social Distortions, Gun Club, Bad Brains, just to name a few. Of the brood, kids led by singer Greg Graffin and guitarist Brett Gurewitz (future founder of Epitaph, the label with which affect today) certainly were not the most gifted exponents nor the most original, as would Scaruffi, but surely the most tenacious and rooted in American punk community (and then international), the main popularizers of what was then called melodic hardcore, and the long career that has brought us here today to write this long and boring review (the opposite of their songs ) would amply demonstrated.

And so, here we are finally. A "True North" and this review that perhaps has no reason to be, or maybe it depends on how you want to read, as long as you want to. I state that I listened to them, if not in bits and bites for more than a decade. As I found them? Well, I'd say. For anything aged. Even so, to be honest, had never seemed so young. There held to be. Nothing looks weird, or high street fashion in their sloppiness, a few tattoos, a little hair on his head, zero cravings for sex symbol. And they were not particularly in the texts, much more mature and reflective of most of the groups around them, written with brilliant concision, rich in irony and vocabulary polished especially in science and technology (Graffin, author of most of the songs , has a doctorate in natural sciences and paleontology and has taught college at UCLA): small apologists flavor aphoristic and philosophical, simple and memorable in their instant clarity. Not for nothing with one of their most famous songs of all time, "21st Century (Digital Boy)", prophesied the future of all media and virtual, that avatar and social networks in which we are immersed. So, picking up the thread of the discourse, have not changed much, hardly at all. And this must be said, was to be expected. And not just because you are training in three original members (Graffin, Gurewitz and bassist Jay Bentley, freshman in 1979, ultra-forties now) but just for the sake of music. There is nothing that is out of place. "True North" is like taking a trip down memory lane in the albums released in the first half of the 90s. Yes, of course, the production of Joe Barresi (Melvins, Kyuss, QOTSA) and the high of six musicians (including three guitars) give all'immarcescibile band's sound a volume more robust and powerful (evident in rifferama songs as "Dharma And The Bomb" and "Robin Hood In Reverse"), but otherwise we are always there. Their standards more representative and anthemici (examples: "Robin Hood In Reverse" and "Land Of Endless Greed") to hit and run scratching and singable a minute and forty or so (to the best of their ability with "My Head Is Full Of Ghots "and" The Island "), the chorus beach-punk well leveled and harmonized (" In Their Heart Is Right "), the sharp twang of microassolo in" Past Is Dead ", in shades that underlie a slightly more classic rock also if ever leafless and miniature ("Dept. Of False Hope", "Changing Tide").

And to answer the third question: no, even if you want, I do not think I had anything better to do in those 36 minutes (as hard disk) and all in all, I even enjoyed it. It will also be childish, but what did you expect? We are the Bad Religion Preservation Society.